Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof has been honored with the First Locarno City of Peace Award, established by the City of Locarno in collaboration with the Locarno Film Festival.
In 2024, the director known for There Is No Evil and The Seed of the Sacred Fig was sentenced in Iran to eight years in prison and public flogging. Shortly before his arrest, he managed to flee his home country.
In the announcement, the festival noted, that the recognition, conferred as part of the Festival’s Diplomacy Day, aims to honor figures from the cultural space who have distinguished themselves in promoting peace, diplomacy, and dialogue among peoples.
During the ceremony, Nancy Lunghi, Head of the Department of Culture of the City of Locarno, stated, “Choosing Mohammad Rasoulof therefore means recognizing art as a form of resistance, as the voice of collective conscience, and as civic commitment – values that Locarno intends to continue supporting with strength and coherence, nurturing its spirit of dialogue and peace – the Esprit de Locarno.”
Festival’s Artistic Director, Giona A. Nazzaro, added, “The cinema of Mohammad Rasoulof is one of the highest and most accomplished expressions of a humanism that lucidly takes shape in the form of an exemplary cinematic gesture. Resisting the temptation to oversimplify the painful contradictions that afflict the relationship between institutions, power, and individuals, Rasoulof has, over the course of his exemplary career, created a body of work that stands as a hymn to human dignity. And it is only from the full respect for human dignity that a renewed spirit of peace can arise.”
On Tuesday, August 12, the public will have the opportunity to meet Mohammad Rasoulof in a conversation moderated by Artistic Director Giona A. Nazzaro at the Forum @Spazio Cinema.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.